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It's a very ambitious technical feat, including both a bullet and a heavy impactor, if it shoots back it will really mess with my prejudices. I'm impressed anyway that they got this far already.

sicut vis videre estoWhen we realize that patterns don't exist in the universe, they are a template that we hold to the universe to make sense of it, it all makes a lot more sense.Originally Posted by Ken G

Hayabusa2 arrived at asteroid Ryugu back on June 27. Since then, it has been holding at a distance of 20 kilometers while flight controllers back on Earth check out its instruments. At the end of July, the spacecraft will start descending to a height of just 5 kilometers for medium-altitude observations.

The project has been quiet for a couple weeks, but today, JAXA released some new goodies! First, two new global views, the second of which really brings the bright object at the north pole into focus:

NHK has learned that scientists now believe the asteroid Ryugu was likely formed from a collection of asteroid fragments.

Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft began observing Ryugu after it reached 20 kilometers from the asteroid on June 27th.

Ryugu is located about 300 million kilometers from Earth and is around 900 meters in diameter. Scientists hope that water and organic materials are present in the asteroid. But how it came into being was not known.

A team of researchers at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is examining images beamed back from the probe.

The group says Ryugu has small and large rocks on its surface, with some estimated to be 100 to 200 meters long.

The team says the terrain is similar to that of the asteroid Itokawa, where the probe's predecessor landed in 2005.

The Hayabusa 2 space probe discovered many boulders scattered on the asteroid Ryugu, suggesting it was formed from fragments of other celestial bodies, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said July 19.

More than 100 rocks larger than 8 meters in length were confirmed on the surface of the “spinning top” asteroid from images captured by Hayabusa 2, according to JAXA.

The largest boulder was about 130 meters in length near the south pole.

Hayabusa2 arrived at Ryugu on June 27, maintaining a standoff distance of 20 kilometers for its initial surveys of the kilometer-sized asteroid and its shape. They call the 20-kilometer standoff distance "Home position," and have established confidence in their ability to hold stably at that position.

[QUOTE]For the second time, JAXA navigators have zoomed their cameras and other instruments in on asteroid Ryugu. The August 1 operation was quicker than the first, taking only 26 hours to descend, do science, and ascend.

The spacecraft ordinarily maintains a position at a "home" distance of 20 kilometers away from Ryugu, stationkeeping at a spot between Earth and the asteroid. For its first "medium altitude" scientific surveys, it takes excursions down to a distance of 5 kilometers. Its first such operation happened from July 17 to July 25 (spending July 20 in proximity to the asteroid).

The Hayabusa2 team live-tweeted the operation in both Japanese and English, sharing a sequence of images from the spacecraft's wide-angle camera throughout. Here, I've assembled the images into an animation:/QUOTE]

This week Hayabusa2 completed its closest approach yet to asteroid Ryugu. In a gravity measurement experiment conducted mostly on August 6, the spacecraft successfully dipped to within 1 kilometer of the asteroid. As before, the mission live tweeted events and pictures in both Japanese and English on Twitter, and posted the images to a Web gallery, enabling me to post a detailed recap here.

It's been two months since Hayabusa2 arrived at Ryugu, and the team reported some preliminary facts (PDF) about the asteroid at a press briefing held yesterday. They also announced the selection of candidate landing sites for the spacecraft sample collection, for the German-built MASCOT hopper, and for the MINERVA-II microrovers.

Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft, which has already returned some initial science from asteroid Ryugu, will soon try to collect a sample from the surface. Touchdown rehearsals are planned in September and October, with the first attempt expected in late October.

The original plan was for Hayabusa2 to collect multiple samples from several locations, to gather a broad range of materials. But it turns out Ryugu’s surface is fairly diverse to begin with, and since sampling is a risky procedure, the team is now focusing on a single location near the equator.

During the collection attempt, Hayabusa2 will drop one of five target markers, which the spacecraft will use as a reference point to hold steady as it moves in to touch Ryugu. These target markers should be of particular interest to people who participated in The Planetary Society's 2013 campaign to collect names and messages for the mission—as well as a similar campaign by JAXA called the Little Prince. That's because each marker carries every submitted name, including a 2013 Planetary Society member roster. The Planetary Society frequently sends names on spacecraft through its Messages from Earth campaign.

Japan's space agency will attempt to land a robotic unmanned landing craft on the surface of an asteroid 300 million-kilometers (186.4 million-miles) away from Earth next month.

The Hayabusa-2 spacecraft is currently orbiting around the diamond-shaped asteroid Ryugu, which it reached in June after a three-and-a-half year journey.
On September 21, the spacecraft will deploy the first of two landers onto the asteroid itself, where they will gather samples and conduct experiments. A second lander will be launched on October 3.

This is why people do rehearsals. Hayabusa2 didn’t quite make it down to its intended 60-meter distance from asteroid Ryugu yesterday. The “touchdown 1 rehearsal 1” operation aborted at an altitude of about 600 meters after the laser altimeter had trouble detecting reflections from Ryugu’s very dark surface. There is nothing wrong with the spacecraft; it’s healthy and returning to its home position of 20 kilometers altitude. The team will adjust parameters and give it another try in the future. In the meantime, they grabbed some cool photos from distances under 1000 meters. The last several optical navigation photos, shared on the Web in real time, actually showed the shadow of Hayabusa2 on the surface of the asteroid.

Hayabusa2's shadow is visible on asteroid Ryugu in new pictures, taken during a dress rehearsal to prepare the spacecraft for deploying a lander in October.
In October, Hayabusa2 will deploy its Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT) rover at a zone in the southern hemisphere nicknamed MA-9. During its mission at Ryugu, Hayabusa2 will deploy several rovers and perform some touchdowns itself.

The small dot-like shadow popped up during activities between Sept. 10 and 12, Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) officials said in a statement. The spacecraft went down to an altitude of nearly 2,000 feet (about 600 meters) and took navigational images with its optical navigation camera

The Japanese asteroid sampling mission Hayabusa2 – launched on December 3, 2014 aboard an H-IIA rocket from Tanegashima, Japan – completed its long flight to asteroid Ryugu (formerly 1999 JU3) before – on September 21 – achieving the milestone of deploying its two tiny MINERVA-II robots/rovers.

The mission was approved as a follow-on to the Hayabusa mission which became the first probe to sample an asteroid when it landed on the young “rubble pile” asteroid Itokawa, though the mission had its share of problems.

It's a little frustrating because there's a "soft" indication in the mission's Tweets that the rovers' canister was (perhaps?) successfully delivered to the surface, but there's been nothing since early this morning (EDT). I haven't seen anything definitive since then.

CJSF

"What does it mean? (What does it mean?)
What does it mean? (What does it mean?)
I'll put it in my thinking machine"-They Might Be Giants, "Thinking Machine"lonelybirder.org

It's a little frustrating because there's a "soft" indication in the mission's Tweets that the rovers' canister was (perhaps?) successfully delivered to the surface, but there's been nothing since early this morning (EDT). I haven't seen anything definitive since then.

CJSF

We have to wait a bit longer before we get the data if it was successful.

The world’s first rovers on an asteroid have arrived, and they’re sending back postcards from Ryugu. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Hayabusa 2 spacecraft arrived at the asteroid in June, and on 21 September it dropped a pair of landers on to the surface.

The landers, collectively known as MINERVA-II, don’t drive around the surface like a standard rover – instead, they hop across the surface a few metres at a time, which is made easier by Ryugu’s weak gravity.

That's a very odd picture.
Are we looking at the sun?
Is it a super wide angle lens?

That could be the mother ship - see post #79 by bknight -"The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Minerva-II1 rover captured this view of asteroid Ryugu (bottom) and the Hayabusa2 spacecraft (at top right) just after the rover separated from the spacecraft on Sept. 21, 2018."

Japan's space agency has successfully landed two rovers on an asteroid for the first time in history. The robotic explorers were dispatched to the Ryugu asteroid from the Hayabusa-2 spacecraft on Friday. Scientists say that studying asteroids could help shed light on the formation of the Solar System 4.6 bln years ago and the evolution of Earth.

Sputnik talked about Japan's successful landing of two rovers on an asteroid with Dr. Yuichi Tsuda, Hayabusa-2 project manager.

A German-built landing probe the size of a microwave oven carrying a camera and a suite of scientific instruments was closing in on asteroid Ryugu Tuesday, riding aboard Japan’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft to join two other robots deployed to the asteroid’s surface last month.

The Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout, or MASCOT, is set to be released from the Japanese Hayabusa 2 mothership at 0158 GMT Wednesday (9:58 p.m. EDT Tuesday) for a free-fall final descent to the asteroid, with its landing velocity tempered by Ryugu’s tenuous gravity field.

A few minutes later, MASCOT will reach Ryugu, and likely bounce several times before coming to a rest.

A 10-kilogram lander has touched down on the surface of an asteroid 325 million kilometres from Earth after it was released from an unmanned Japanese spacecraft.

"The relief about the successful separation and subsequent confirmation of the landing was clearly noticeable in the MASCOT Control Centre" the German Aerospace Centre said on Wednesday, referring to the lander called the Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout.

The scout was built by DLR and the French National Centre for Space Studies.

Japan’s Hayabusa 2 probe and the German-French MASCOT lander have teamed up to send back amazing views of an asteroid that’s more than 180 million miles from Earth, including a snapshot of the lander falling toward the asteroid and an on-the-ground view of its rocky terrain.

Scientists shared the images today at the International Astronautical Congress in Germany, during a recap of MASCOT’s successful 17-hour survey of the asteroid Ryugu. Hayabusa 2, which has been hovering above the half-mile-wide asteroid for weeks, dropped the foot-wide, boxy lander onto the surface on Wednesday.

MASCOT stands for “Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout.” The robotic scout conducted a scientific sweep with its four instruments — a camera, a radiometer, a magnetometer and an infrared spectrometer — and used its robotic swing arm as necessary to hop around the surface. It operated for three asteroid days and two asteroid nights, with each full day-night cycle lasting about seven hours and 36 minutes.

More than 325 million kilometers from Earth, a toaster-sized spacecraft sits defunct on the surface of a little asteroid, its job complete. For 17 hours on 3 October, the Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT) lander sent data to the waiting Hayabusa2 orbiter from multiple locations on Ryugu.

Hayabusa2 is far from Earth, so data and images arrived on the ground slowly. For the first two days, this was our only tantalizing view from MASCOT’s landing, one of 20 photos that the lander took and relayed to Hayabusa2 as it descended: